Return
by mikaykaayy
Summary: The pursuit of strength is not an easy one. Sacrifices must be made if Evanee hopes to rekindle her lost power. OC training progression. Side story of Twilight Zone.
1. Beginnings

The travel to Evanee's undisclosed location had not been an easy one – nor was it a quick one. She had already cost herself a week, leaving only 39 left for work. The time gone was minimal, but she remained displeased with herself at the moment nonetheless. She did not depart from her guild for this time to lollygag and continue to ignore what she had for so long. Evanee had 280 days until she needed to return, and every last one of those days had to be used efficiently and strategically if she ever hoped to grow stronger.

Stronger.

She needed to be _so much stronger._

The months had passed by quietly, and Evanee began to disregard her strength; she disregarded her routines; the amount of work she needed to put in to maintain her pristine status became practically _nonexistent._ It was frustrating – infuriating, even. This was not how she wished to be known. While the Carlisle may very well be the youngest ace among the guilds, she would be damned if that meant she was going to be the weakest.

It wasn't just her title that was at stake anymore, it was her reputation. The Nymph Mage had grown increasingly soft over the months since Twilight Zone rose to the radar, and that was even more frustrating than her lack of ambition. That wasn't her; Evanee was not the sweetheart girl next door. She was a powerhouse. A body of strength. She was not _kind_, and she knew she had begun to give off an impression that stated otherwise. These next nine months in solitude would reinstate what she had suppressed for so long.

Evanee Carlisle was coming back.

She was coming back better than she had left.

And there was someone she knew she could count on to make sure of it.

**.**

**.**

_"So, this is the little girl of wonders you speak so highly of?" The voice easily belonged to a male, and an elderly one at that. His figure was shrouded by darkness, but the unlit room glimmered with a synthetic light from the stars accenting the wall. It was like a galaxy - an eerie, unwelcoming galaxy, but a galaxy nonetheless; despite how it lured you into its embrace, it dared you not take another step further. Quite the contradiction, but a beautiful and intriguing one. One that drew the little girl and her companion in. _

_"Yes," the other male responded, though it was clear his age paled in comparison to the silhouette's, "you'll see quickly what I mean if you teach her. I promise." He pushed the young girl forward, into arms' length of the male before them. The latter reached down, grasping the sides of her jaw in his forefinger and thumb and lifted her chin towards him, examining what he could in the limited lighting. The most prominent features had been her striking emerald irises and the mint tips of her midnight locks. He only maintained his grip on her briefly before nodding and removing his hand. _

_"I see it already," he proclaimed, "there's more than promise in this one. I'll take her in. Return in a year's time and she'll be ready."_

_"Alright," he replied with obvious reluctance. "Behave yourself, Ev. And don't grow too fond of this place, we need you back at the Zone."_

_"Sure..." She folded her arms across her chest and turned to face her companion, a bit of a stubborn pout left on her expression as he began to make his exit. Thankfully the lack of lighting didn't make it easy to see... "I'll see you in a year, I guess."_

_The elder then waved him off. "Do not be tardy in regathering her, Caelestis." _

_The younger nodded as he reached the door and pulled it open. Light poured in from the outside, illuminating his crisp platinum hair and gentle smile. "I wouldn't leave my best friend here for good. Don't worry." _

_He then departed, leaving the ten year old Evanee Carlisle in the possession of the elder. He reached down once more, grasping her by her shoulder and spinning her around to face him. His voice was now stern and cold, more so than it had been seconds before. _

_"Do not think this is going to be pleasant. By the time this is over, you'll have power unfathomable for someone of your age, and I expect it to only grow as you do. Ruthless is what you'll become."_

_Evanee nodded as a slow smirk curled the corners of her lips. _It was exactly what she wanted to hear.

_"Perfect."_

**.**

**.**

"It's been a while, Evanee..."

"Yeah, seven years. I'm sure there's no need for me to explain why I'm here, so let's not waste any time on it, eh?"

The man grinned. It was not genuine; it was sardonic, _patronizing._ He did, in fact, know why his past disciple had returned, but he wanted to entertain the matter. Besides, seven years was quite a long time to go without any contact. It was quite rude that she appear out of the blue in such a manner.

He would know, though. It was, in a sense, his responsibility for her being such a way.

"Now, now. We both remember what I said to you eight years ago, at the beginning of your lessons, is that correct?"

"...Yes, it is."

"You've lost your edge, is that correct?"

Her eyes rolled and her arms were crossed atop her chest conservatively. She was being mocked, and as much as she wanted to snap, _she simply couldn't._ She practically owed this man her life. A huff exuded her lips as she nodded, once again answering with hesitation: "Yes."

"Explain to me exactly why that's so, Evanee. I know I taught you better than that."

_Explain?_ God, it sounded so fucking embarrassing. She was ashamed of herself and she didn't want anyone seeing that - let alone the man that paved her path. She succumbed to her emotions - to compassion. Two things she gave up so early on in the pursuit of strength. Two things she knew would _make her weak._ And that's exactly what happened.

"I'm waiting," the elder chimed.

She hesitated even more before actually swallowing her pride and speaking up.

"I'm weak because I care." It was a mumble; barely a whisper.

His ancient ears were not bad - certainly, he heard her. But he needed her to be louder. To own up to exactly what it was that softened her out.

"Come again?"

"... I said I'm weak because I care, Kiron-san. Because I let people grow on me. I'm weak because I'm no longer ruthless."

_Because I let people grow on me._ Ah, he'd expected those words to come.

A guild was no place for someone like Evanee.

Someone who craved all the strength she could possibly achieve. Someone who wanted nothing more than to be the absolute best.

Kiron could change all of it for her.

He could fix her.

Put her back together the way she wanted to be.

And so...

"Evanee, remove your Twilight Zone guild mark."


	2. The Path You Chose

**_._**

**_._**

**_II_**

**_._**

**_._**

_"Evanee, remove your Twilight Zone guild mark."_

Lashes fluttered against her porcelain features, stunned. Befuddled. Remove her mark..? That would mean leaving her home... Her family... She couldn't find words, nor could she even bring her body to move.

"Well?" Kiron instigated impatiently. She had said it herself that there was no time to be wasted, yet here she was, stalling on her lessons. _She needs this worse than I thought, _the elder suggested to himself. "If you're not going to adhere to my rules, I won't bother taking you in again. This is a favor. You are not my responsibility."

Moments of silence passed between the two. They held no significance to Kiron, but to Evanee, seconds felt like hours - hours of contemplation. Was she really ready to fully leave Twilight Zone? She never thought she would need to make such a decision.

But the fact that this decision existed meant something.

She was choosing between emotion and strength.

Evanee did not come this far to turn right back around and go back to being what she thought of as _useless._ Without her power, _what was she?_ Nothing but a shell of a girl. This is why she needed Kiron. This is why she needed to be taught again. To be trained to such an extent that the possibility of falling back into her current ways was nonexistent.

It cleared up to her immediately. Determination saturated her expression and she issued her teacher a stern nod as her Nymph Magic began to encase her right hand - Underworld Nymph Magic, specifically. She then lifted her thistle colored shirt enough to reveal her mark on her lower right back and placed the palm of her hand over the imprint. It glowed beneath her touch, radiating a golden light that could directly be linked back to Caelestis, and eventually lifted from her skin, fading into nothing. Evanee removed her hand and recovered her lower abdomen.

She was free of her responsibilities to the Twilight Zone guild. She was an independent mage with nothing holding her back.

"There," she stated, "it's gone."

"Very good. Now, this session will go as I say it will. Forget what you thought you were in store for, because it is going to be very different than it was eight years ago. Are we clear, Evanee?"

"Yes, Kiron-san. I'm ready for whatever you have for me."

"That's what I like to hear!" In a sardonic form of excitement, Kiron clapped his hands together. "You can start by cleaning around this cabin! I haven't gotten to it in ages." The elder man cracked a smug grin as he took a quick glance around the familiar area, scanning the hoarded mess that it had come to be.

Even though there was still an overwhelming sense of darkness, broken only by the small gleams of false stars, Evanee could see the curl of his lips, and it irked her - enough so that a scowl took residence upon her features. Clean his house? It sounded so utterly ridiculous - she didn't even clean the guild. Unfortunately for her, she already gave Kiron her word. She agreed to do whatever he had in store for her, and she had to keep up with it. Because she wanted her reputation back. She wanted to feel like Evanee Carlisle again, not whoever this person was living in her shell. The path she chose was strength, not kindness. Both mentor and student planned to put her back on such a path, and neither would stop until she was there once again.

And if that meant starting with cleaning a shack, then so be it.

**.**

**.**

Several hours had passed when Evanee finally finished spit-shining the inside of the house. Her vexed visage was stained with soot and dirt from the farthest corners of each room and her arms _actually ached_ from the sheer amount of physical labor.

That was certainly something new. Never had she experienced pain from anything other than her training or the obvious battle.

A sigh exuded her pursed lips as she then returned to the main living space of her mentor's home, presenting herself before him once more. "I'm finished," was all that she stated - in an exceptionally stale tone, at that.

He'd hardly been paying attention to his surroundings. Kiron buried his pale face and dull eyes within the pages of an aging book. Its binding was worn and the cover littered with lacerations, making its title unreadable. He had been so entranced by the piece of literature that Evanee's first announcement went directly over his head - and that seemed to bother her. Rather than repeating herself or attempting to make herself heard again, she merely reached her hand out for the book, gripping it by its upper half and pulling it away from her mentor's face, replacing the sight of words on yellowing paper for her souring expression. "I said I'm _finished_."

He quirked his brow, taking a moment to fully absorb his student's _audacity._ It was then his turn to sigh, and as he did, he closed the book and placed it in his lap, a stern visage overtaking him.

"You're actually no where near done," he began sternly, "but if it's going to help you sleep at night, give yourself a pat on the back."

"Whatever. At least tell me what I'm doing next, and maybe a head's up if it's going to be as useless as cleaning your damn house."

"Let me ask you something, Evanee. As you were cleaning, did you feel any particular emotion standing out to you?"

The nymph mage froze in a bout of confusion; his question had caught her quite off guard, shaking her conscience to a point of discomfort, but it stuck. She thought. An emotion that stood out...

"Disdain," she retorted, "abhorrence."

"Why?"

There it was again. Why? _Why?_ It should have been obvious, because...

"It was completely irrelevant to my goals, of course. It served of no use to me."

_Bingo._

"Exactly, Evanee. Cleaning _my _house was in no way related to _your desires._ It bothered you because it was in your way. Do you believe it's fair to say that you wanted to dispose of your task - to remove it completely from your path?"

"Of course!" Evanee snapped - "What kind of stupid question is that!?" - and then realized exactly where Kiron was going with the pre-lesson of his.

"You've lost your spark because you allow things to get in the way of what you truly want without a fight. You were easily distracted, causing you to lose sight of your ambition - your quest for absolute power. _Don't let anything stand in your way. If anything comes before you, you tear it down; you destroy it; abolish it; remove it from the fabric of existence, because **it serves no use to**__** you**._"

As much as she wanted to scoff, she knew exactly how right he was. Everything that she came into contact with as a member of the Twilight Zone guild was detrimental to her one and only goal. The realization itself hit her like a brick, and afterwards she wanted to physically do the same. _How could she have been so blind?_ It was all right under her nose, and she didn't pay an ounce of fucking attention to it. She was so lost in all the extraneous matters that she lost sight of what mattered, and without that, _what was she even fucking aiming for?_ Friendship? Lasting relationships? No, never. None of that matters. Evanee lived for herself, and herself only.

She was at a loss for words - surprisingly, with all the thoughts that rushed through her head, she just couldn't put together a coherent sentence. All she could do was clench her fists under folded arms and avert her eyes from her mentor, unable to even bear eye contact with him.

Luckily enough, Kiron had none of those problems. He was only there to help Evanee clear her vision. The things she didn't know, he did, and he had the words for it.

"Keep the disdain and abhorrence in the back of your conscience always, they will help you recognize when something is disturbing your way. Let nothing deter you from the path you chose."

Following suit of her fists, Evanee's jaw clenched. Shortly after, she nodded.

Her pathway had been cleared.

Now she could grow.


End file.
